IBM on Thursday announced a group of solutions for developers to develop, test, and deliver applications in private and public cloud environments.

IBM Smart Business Development and Test on the IBM Cloud is a new and free public cloud for software development designed to speed up and enhance development and delivery of software. The platform is specifically targeted at larger enterprises who see hundreds of development projects yearly. With compute and storage as a service environments, IBM hopes to create a complete and unified platform for development in the cloud.

Included in the platform is a set of services called IBM Rational Software Delivery Services for Cloud Computing, which includes a wide ranging set of productivity tools for development in the cloud. The set of services boasts a solid set of features aimed at streamlining developing for the cloud. Besides enabling collaborative development, the platform comes with an integrated set of services, Test Management, Test Planning, and Test Lab Management, that greatly improve processing speed for testing, something that might usually take much longer simply to install and setup in other systems.

"Enterprises are looking for optimal business models to lower the cost of developing and deploying software while maximizing existing investments. Cloud-based models offer flexible, instant sourcing options based on teams' needs while enhancing control of their delivery models," said Dr. Daniel Sabbah, general manager, IBM Rational Software. "With more and more customers treating software as a strategic business asset, the combined value of the new offerings can help them gain the utmost value from their investments in IT across the application lifecycle."

Coincidentally, on Wednesday, IBM launched the IBM Cloud Academy to create a discussion between educators, researchers, and IT personnel on the many facets of cloud computing. Cloud computing has gained considerable traction over the last many years, so it's good to see IBM assisting that growth.

IBM is currently offering open and free participation for its new cloud platform at its cloud developer Web page.